The Homegrown Cinema Series continues Monday at the Parkway Theater with Stimulus, which held its premiere at the Varsity Theater to a sold-out crowd of over 300 people.



Stimulus, 2007
96 minutes

For most people, the nebulous time between high school and college is a prime opportunity to develop and implement a plan for the rest of their lives. For Simon and Bert, it is much easier to spend the time aimlessly taking courses at the local community college or serving coffee for minimum wage. As the summer goes on, Bert's high school nostalgia intensifies, and he becomes infatuated with 17-year-old Darla. Meanwhile, Simon makes and effort to "grow up" in order to impress Wendy, and outgoing young woman who frequents the coffee shop where he and Bert spend most of their time. Much to Bert's dismay, this quest for maturity gets Simon entangled in a pyramid scheme, forcing them to reconsider precisely what their friendship means, as well as what kind of people they are developing into.

Official Selection at IndiCan Film Festival in Toronto, Canada
Winner of Audience Choice Award at the Big Damn Film Festival in Minneapolis

Jason P. Schumacher was born in 1983 in St. Paul and raised in Lake Elmo, MN and has been interested in film and video ever since he started making stop-motion films with his dad using Leogs. He attended college at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, studying Fine Arts and Film. He returned to MN to work on projects from no-budget indies to big-budget films, while still creating his short experimental works. He recently shot the feature "Why am I in a Box?" written and directed by award-winning writer Rachel Grubb, and is in the process of editing his second feature "The Telephone Game," both due out in 2009.

Stimulus Trailer: